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entrance of the Straits of Malacca. In the ports of Sumatra, they were detained five months for a favourable season, in which to cross the Bay of Bengal. Having accomplished this difficulty they reached Ceylon, whose celebrated peak is specially mentioned. From thence they coasted the shores of Hindustan ; and Marco Polo mentions, though it is probable he did not actually visit, several places in the ancient kingdom of Narsingha, as Masulipatam and the diamond mines of Golkonda, Gujerát, Cambay, Súmenát, and Mekrán, which he terms the last, as the most western division of India. At Ormazd, on the Persian Gulf, the expedition disembarked, after a voyage which there is every reason to suppose lasted about eighteen months.

On their arrival they received intelligence that Arghún, the chief whom the Princess was to have married, was already dead; and she was, in consequence, transmitted to his son Gházán, at that time preparing to mount the throne. Of her subsequent fate nothing is known. The object of their mission being accomplished, the travellers went on to Tauris (Tabriz), where the regent of the empire at that time resided; and, having rested from their long and arduous journey, they proceeded homewards, by the way of Ván, Erzerúm, and Trebizonde; and passing through Constantinople and Negropont, eventually reached their native city, Venice, in A.D. 1295, after an absence of twenty-four years.

Such is a very brief outline of the course of the most memo. rable travels which have ever been performed. "Upon their first arrival," says Mr. Marsden, "the travellers experienced the reception that attended Ulysses when he returned to Ithaca,—— they were not recognised even by their nearest relations, especially as rumours of their death had been current, and were confidently believed. By the length of time they had been absent, the fatigues they had undergone in journies of such extent, and the anxieties of mind they had suffered, their appearance was quite changed, and they appeared to have acquired. something of the Tátár, both in countenance and speech, their native language being mixed with foreign idioms and barbarous terms. In their garments, too, which were of mean and coarse texture, there was nothing that resembled those of the Italians." may be interesting to add, that the notes of Marco Polo's

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travels, which remain to us, were taken down from his mouth, by a gentleman named Rustighello or Rustigielo, (who, according to Ramusio, was a Genoese gentleman, with whom he had formed an intimacy,) while Marco Polo was confined in the prison at Genoa, about the year A.D. 1298.

As might have been expected, the information which his manuscript gave of countries till that time unheard of, and of manners incompatible with every idea that had been hitherto entertained of the barbarians of Tátary, was treated with levity or ridicule by the generality of his countrymen, and was read with suspicion by the best instructed persons in every part of Europe. It was thought by them a paradox, that while the western world was overrun by tribes, whom terror painted as even more savage than they really were, other tribes of the same nomadic race, and professing submission to one common head, should be found to live, not only under a regular government, but as the constituent part of a splendid and highly-civilised empire, filled with magnificent cities, and exhibiting a commercial greatness with which that of Venice was trifling in comparison.

CHAPTER VII.

Babylon-Intermediate History from its capture by Cyrus to the commencement of Modern Travels-Early Travellers-Eldred, Rauwulf, Boeventing, Della Valle-Niebuhr-Abbé Beauchamp-Rich-Remains at BabylonKasr - Mujelibé — Birs-i-Nimrúd - Major Rennell's Controversy with Mr. Rich-Buckingham-Researches of Sir Robert Ker Porter-Ruins of Akkerkúf-Al Hymer.

HAVING now given some account of the history of the ancient empires of Assyria and Persia, with such portions of that of the nations with whom they were brought into immediate contact as we have deemed necessary for the clear development of our subject: and, having mentioned briefly the names and works of the more celebrated of the early European travellers, we shall proceed to describe the monumental remains still existing in those countries, for the elucidation of which we have been indebted, mainly, to recent travellers. We shall commence with the ruins of Babylon, because universal tradition has up to this time ascribed to her the greatest antiquity, though late discoveries have shown, that the sculptures, which Mr. Layard has excavated, are older than anything which has been yet discovered at Babylon. We shall then describe the Assyrian monuments of Khorsabád and Nimrúd, and the remains of the Achæmenian æra in Persia; lastly, we shall give a concise account of the Cuneiform inscriptions, and of the successful results of Major Rawlinson's labours in the interpretation of those characters.

We have already given some account of the presumed early history of Babylon, with some notice of her peculiarly advantageous position, and its probable results. We come now to the consideration of what may be called her present state, and to a more particular examination of the remains still existing on the banks of the Euphrates below Hillah, which traditionally represent the site of the once mighty "Queen of the Nations." As might have been expected, few localities have been so much visited by travellers, or so often described. Yet, after all we know little more than that vast shapeless mounds cover the presumed site of the ancient city, and that gems, cylinders, bricks,

and fragments of inscriptions have been from time to time picked up on the spot, or gathered from the Arab peasantry of the surrounding villages. Though some excavations have been made there, and latterly by Mr. Layard, with some system, no monumental remains have been met with, bearing any comparison with those from Nineveh.

The traveller, who, in modern days, has devoted most time and patience to the illustration of Babylon and its ruins, and to whom we are indebted for the best exertions, and the most connected narrative of them, is Mr. Rich, who, during many years which he passed at Baghdad, as British Resident, had great facilities and opportunities for the task he undertook. A very complete account of his labours was published about ten years ago by his widow. It contains an account of his journey to Babylon; two memoirs which he wrote on the ruins, the first of which was published at Vienna in the Fundgruben des Orients, in the year 1811; and a paper on the Topography of Babylon, by Major Rennell, originally read before the Society of Antiquaries, and printed in the Archæologia.

Before, however, we proceed to a description of the existing remains, it may be not uninteresting to trace the history of Babylon from the time of Dareius to the commencement of the visits of modern travellers. Of the period between the taking of the city by Cyrus and that reign we know nothing; but it appears that Dareius broke down its walls after a revolt, which, as we shall see, is recorded on the monument at Behistún. Ctesias mentions a subsequent revolt and capture of Babylon in the reign of Xerxes, and attributes the outbreak of the Babylonians to their indignation at the robbery of the statue of Belus, and the assassination of the priest who guarded it; but there seems some ground for supposing that Ctesias has confounded the revolt against Dareius with that against Xerxes. Whether, however, this be so or not, it is certain that Xerxes finally destroyed the magnificent temple of Belus. Alexander the Great intended to rebuild it; but the ruins of it were so vast, that, after employing ten thousand men,* for two months, to clear them away, he gave up his plan, though aided by a vast concourse of people, no one refusing to join in the work, except the Jews. At the epoch of the death of Alexander, Babylon began to be deserted. Of the three hundred

* Strabo, xv.

Hecat. ap. Joseph. c. Ap. 1.

and sixty-five stadia which formed the original circumference of its walls, it is said that only ninety were inhabited.* Alexander was himself the first, unconscious that he was fulfilling the Prophecies of Isaiah, to break down the walls of Babylon, a portion of which he removed to raise the funeral pyre of Hephæstion. The breach in the inner wall soon spread, and Babylon was completely dismantled when Demetrius Poliorcetes took the city. At this time it is said that only two fortresses remained of its once magnificent fortifications. Even before the arrival of Alexander, Patroclus, his general, had expelled its inhabitants. from Babylon, who, we are told, retreated from the Euphrates, and fled into the desert, or took refuge on the further shores of the Tigris, and southwards in Persia. Seleucus Nicator abandoned the ancient city altogether, and transferred the seat of his power and his royal residence to Seleucia, a city he had built not far distant from Babylon, on the banks of the Tigris, and to which he had given his name; and Pausanias, who states that the Babylonians were compelled to come and live there, adds, that, in his time, the walls and temple of Belus scarcely any longer existed, though there were still a few Chaldæans, who continued to dwell around the latter edifice. Strabo further states that Seleucia increased as Babylon decayed, and that, in his days, it was much larger than the old town, which was in a great measure deserted.

From this time its decay was rapid. In B.C. 127, a Parthian army reduced many Babylonian children to slavery, and transported them to Media to be sold. In the reign of Augustus, Diodorus Siculus states that a very small portion was inhabited and the rest under cultivation; while in that of Caligula, religious intolerance gave rise to a war, occasioned by the constancy of the Jews to their religion, and a large number of this people took refuge in Babylon, and perished in the persecution which ensued. Six years later, a plague ravaged Babylon, and drained her of her few remaining inhabitants. From this time, the city seems to have been completely forgotten, and it is hardly mentioned in the expeditions of Trajan and Severus into Mesopotamia. Lucian of Samosata and Maximus Tyrius, in the reigns of Aurelius and Commodus respectively, speak of its entire destruction, and Libanius Sophistes states that Ctesiphon, (the city which had

* Q. Curtius, lib. v. c. 1; Diod., ii. 5—7.

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